For safety purposes, children are often restrained in a vehicle seat, child safety seat, etc. with a conventional seat belt assembly. The seat belt assembly may include, for example, a base with a tongue and a buckle. The tongue is inserted into the buckle and latched therein to lock the seat belt assembly. To unlock the seat belt assembly, a release button on the buckle is manually pushed to unlatch the tongue from the buckle. Because the release button is in open view and is easily accessible, children are capable of intentionally or inadvertently pressing the release button and unlocking the seat belt assembly. This can be extremely dangerous in that the child can endure harm if not properly restrained, especially if an adult supervising the child is unaware that the child has become unrestrained.
It is therefore desirable to develop a buckle safety device that can be used with any seat belt assembly, including those provided on child safety seats, wherein the buckle safety device prevents a child from unlocking the seat belt assembly and ensures that the child remains safely restrained. It is further desirable to develop a buckle safety device that can remain attached to the seat belt assembly between uses such that use of the buckle safety device is simplified and misplacement of the buckle safety device can be prevented.